Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a liquid discharge apparatus for discharging a liquid and method for manufacturing the liquid discharge apparatus.
Description of the Related Art
An ink-jet head for an ink-jet printer is known, which serves as a liquid discharge apparatus for discharging ink onto a recording medium while moving in the scanning direction. The ink-jet head is known, which includes, for example, a nozzle plate, a channel forming substrate, and a plurality of piezoelectric elements. The nozzle plate is formed with a plurality of nozzles. The channel forming substrate is composed of a substrate of silicon single crystal, and the channel forming substrate is joined to the nozzle plate. The channel forming substrate is formed with a plurality of pressure chambers which are communicated with the plurality of nozzles respectively and manifolds which supply the ink to the plurality of pressure chambers. The plurality of piezoelectric elements are arranged on the upper surface of the channel forming substrate while corresponding to the plurality of pressure chambers respectively.
In the case of the ink-jet head described above, the channel forming substrate is formed with not only the plurality of pressure chambers but also the manifolds each having a large volume (area). Therefore, the size of the channel forming substrate is increased. In this case, the channel forming substrate is produced such that the piezoelectric element is formed as a film on a silicon wafer, and then the wafer is cut and divided into those having a predetermined size. In this way, the film formation step for the piezoelectric elements exists, and hence the cost is expensive per one sheet of wafer to serve as the channel forming substrate. In order to decrease the cost by increasing the number of preparable channel forming substrates from one sheet of wafer, the size of the channel forming substrate can be decreased as small as possible.